Call for codification of laws, amendments to Standing Orders

Opposition spokesman José Herrera yesterday called on the government to start the codification of legislation - a process last undertaken by Sir Adrian Dingli - and amend the House Standing Orders with respect to subsidiary legislation.

Dr Herrera was speaking during the debate on the second reading of the Interpretation Act (Amendment) Bill. It provides for the electronic publication of international instruments to which Malta is a contracting party and the recognition of the publication, in the Official Journal and its electronic means, of instruments of the European Union.

Dr Herrera said that the codification of legislation would eliminate regulations which were scattered in different legislative acts. These would be collected in one document.

The introduction of special laws, rather than amending the original codes of law to regulate new developments, should be limited.

He said an effort must be made to update the Criminal Code by including in it offences which were found in a number of special laws. This would eliminate today's situation, where it was not enough for one to read only the Criminal Code in relation to criminal offences.

Referring to the Parliamentary Standing Orders, Dr Herrera called for an amendment allowing a motion presented by a Member of Parliament, asking for parliamentary scrutiny of a subsidiary legislation, to be debated automatically and not subject to the discretion of the Speaker.

He noted that while it was necessary for Parliament to delegate legislative discretion to the ministers, thus giving them the discretion to pass subsidiary legislation within the perimeters set by the parent act, yet Parliament should not be excluded from exercising its scrutiny of such subsidiary legislation.

Earlier, Dr Herrera said the opposition would vote in favour of the Bill. Malta was quite in the forefront in the technological updating and online publication of the Laws of Malta and sentences handed down by the Courts.

The use of the internet increased efficiency at the Law Courts, especially where verbal statements were concerned. But this did not apply to the Criminal Courts.

He referred to the website which hosts and publishes not only the laws of Malta but also court judgments and the minutes of proceedings. He invited the Justice Minister to also include access to the minutes of proceedings pending before the criminal courts.

He also called for the publication of the decisions delivered by the Industrial Tribunal, which although not falling within the remit of the ministry still deserved to be published on line. This would be helpful to those carrying out research in employment law.

Dr Herrera said the courts' archives were a national treasure because they reflected history and Maltese life over the years. Yet these were not well administered and he asked for a good infrastructure that would support such archives.

Referring to a private member's Bill that he had moved, Dr Herrera said it was necessary to regulate agreements reached between parties during pending proceedings. An amendment to the law had introduced regulation of this insofar as the superior courts, yet no such regulation existed in relation to cases pending before the lower courts. This might considerably decrease the number of pending cases before the lower courts.

He expressed concern over the reliance on information technology for the publication of legislative acts, due to issues of security in technology. In this regard, he also noted that judicial cognisance was currently given only to documents submitted in hard copy, and not by means of information technology.

Introducing the Bill earlier, Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said that his ministry had set up a unit to administer the ministry's website regarding laws. There was room for improvement in the technical field, and a number of projects to upgrade the website were under way.

He sad pen-drives would be provided to legal operators so that they could get updated electronic versions of Maltese law, which would be upgraded periodically.

The Justice Unit had to provide electronic versions of international treaties to which Malta was a contracting partner. These treaties would be published online and easily accessible by the public.

One of the objectives of the Bill was to provide for the electronic publication of international instruments to which Malta was a contracting party.

Another objective was the publication of the legal instruments of the European Union to which Malta had acceded in accordance with the European Union Act. Dr Mifsud Bonnici said this gave recognition to the publication of these legal instruments in the Official Journal. For this purpose, the official websites of the European Union sufficed for the requirements of the publication.

Anġlu Farrugia (PL) said parts of the text of the Bill were questionable. The courts sometimes had difficulty in interpreting legal texts, and it was therefore important to publish court judgements online. The House should acknowledge and the government should encourage such publications.

Dr Farrugia said the time was ripe for MPs and the judiciary to discuss, on a professional basis, the different interpretations given to similar court judgements.

He said that everyone's rights had to be safeguarded and preference could not be given to those who had access to the internet. He called on the government to publish the written texts of international conventions to which Malta was a signatory in the Government Gazette.

Interjecting, Justice Minister Carm Mifsud Bonnici said the text of these conventions would be published in the Government Gazette.

Owen Bonnici (PL) said that the fact that online publication of international conventions and EU legislation would be given legal status was facilitating things to lawyers and people interested in legal affairs.

Dr Bonnici said that this was a revolutionary step forward because every Maltese citizen now had a right to preliminary reference. As such, Maltese citizens could take action before the European Court of Justice at any time.

The Bill was simplifying the use of this procedure. If the court had to decide on a preliminary fact, it had to refer to EU legal instruments as indicated on the websites mentioned in the Bill. Most of what article 5 of the Interpretation Act demanded had now been superseded and had to be revised.

The recent controversy between Malta and Italy on illegal immigration showed the importance of interpreting international legal instruments correctly.

Dr Bonnici proposed that the Bill contain provisions acknowledging that treaties affecting Malta's status, sovereignty, independence, national security and territorial integrity were valid only if approved by Parliament.

Electoral campaigns for the European Parliament emphasised local issues when one had to focus also on European issues, including the Lisbon Treaty. This was indicative that the European Union was still distant in the minds of the electorate. It was therefore essential to simplify European legislation so that this would have an impact on citizens. This was the function of the Malta-EU Information Centre.

Concluding, Dr Bonnici said that he believed that the Erasmus programme should be extended to all young people and not only to university students so that many more would become familiar with EU proceedings and be able to contribute to a healthy debate on European legislation.

Dr Gavin Gulia said there was still not enough public interest to familiarise itself with current legislation, or even to enquire into the progress of a lawsuit. On the other hand, lawyers now made extensive use of the internet.

Before internet had come along, judgements used to be published in hard copy by the volume, in what had come to be appreciated as a very good service. But the law courts' website was usually not up to date on specific issues. Part-timers used to give a better service than the current full-timers.

Dr Gulia said the internet could also be used to update legal notices and subsidiary legislation. The amount of legislation going through the House over the past six years, which also affected the courts, was impressive. But something needed to be done to ensure that lawyers were electronically advised when a particular piece of legislation came into effect.

After extensive trial, a system of court appointments had fallen flat and eventually been removed altogether. But the current practice was still not very helpful to lawyers.

Interjecting, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said this system must be improved, even for the sake of the party making the lawsuit.

Continuing, Dr Gulia said there was no better system than the conventional one, wherein the presiding judge appointed the hearing himself and thus held better control of a lawsuit's progress.

Plea bargaining did not legally exist at law, but everyone knew it was regularly resorted to. A crime could seem to be identical to another, but the circumstances would make it different. This was why it could seem that there was no consistency in the handing down of judgements. But even when court, prosecution and defence were satisfied with the plea bargaining, the attorney general sometimes undid everything by appealing the sentence on the very last day of the right of appeal.

The Criminal Court had taken the attitude of hearing only the attorney general's appeal because the defence would not have appealed in time. This invariably gave rise to injustices which should be ended once and for all.

Winding up, Minister Mifsud Bonnici said it was right not only that legislation was passed in Parliament, but also that the public could have access to it through internet. When it came to EU international treaties, everybody involved in the course of justice needed to be well versed with developments.

The Interpretation Act laid down what constituted an international treaty, and it used to become law only when published in the Government Gazette. The situation now was that the treaty became part of Maltese law as soon as it was ratified.

The test of authenticity and accessibility of legislation would be its publication on the internet. In spite of some local media's criticism that the Maltese courts were lagging behind in legislative information to the public, the truth was that in this aspect Malta was among the best. What the Bill was aiming to do was to make that good position even better.

There was no denying that international treaties were important, and the translation of many of them into Maltese would enhance the advantage to the public. There was no possibility of anything being added to or removed from such legislation.

There was now no need to issue legal notices to make European legislation part of Maltese law, because this happened automatically. The difference would be that they would be easier to find by the public. Malta was treading new ground because it was in the lead of its European counterparts.

In the first four months of 2009 there had been no less than 1,662 decisions taken by Maltese courts, and 1,400 new lawsuits had been instituted. It was obvious that the more that could be done in updating information, the better.

Dr Mifsud Bonnici agreed with Dr Herrera that efforts should be made not to keep increasing chapters in Maltese laws.

In Gozo, a new project had been instituted a year ago to scan all new lawsuits, which were already available on the internet.

On Dr Gulia's suggestion to let lawyers know when particular legislation came into effect, Dr Mifsud Bonnici said this had been done for a long time, but it was obvious that things must be done better.

Concluding, he said the passage of the Bill would be sending an important message out of all proportion to its size.

Consolidation of what had been achieved so far was of the utmost importance. With all the current talk of e-justice in the EU, foreign counterparts could not help admiring the steady progress that Malta was making in the sector.

The ultimate aim was to give each lawyer a pen-drive with all updated Maltese legislation that could be further updated with simply a visit to the Justice Department.

The Bill was unanimously given a second reading.